


Encouragement

by CertainlyRed



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 08:14:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7040407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CertainlyRed/pseuds/CertainlyRed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carol took the lead in Waterloo; newly reunited with her, Therese seeks the confidence to fully reciprocate Carol's affection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Encouragement

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this sitting on my computer for months. Though it remains incomplete, I've decided to post it anyway in the hope that if readers enjoy it, I will be motivated to continue. This idea arose out of a desire to depict Therese's development, with respect to her sexual knowledge and confidence, in a way that is in keeping with both her character and the times. I hope you enjoy it :)

She had never wanted to give Richard any encouragement. On nights when she had begrudgingly consented to a date—for, how long could she deny such a request to a man she had agreed to go steady with?—Therese found herself dressing with a measure of conservatism both distant and familiar to her several years after leaving the school. The bold red lipstick she had sported confidently during her interview at Frankenberg’s, Revlon’s “Certainly Red,” she substituted for the previous year’s more powdery, more unassuming “Stormy Pink.” On some occasions, she greeted Richard with only the pale peach-pink of her own mouth. Without lipstick, she found, others tended to drastically underestimate her age.

Shortly after she’d moved to her first apartment in New York, a vacuum salesman had knocked on her door and asked to speak with the lady of the house. When Therese, fresh from a bath and no trace of the cosmetic veneer she’d last applied, answered that she was the lady he sought, he laughed. She couldn’t be much older than his own daughter, he said, who was entering high school in the fall. And she shouldn’t get ahead of herself—she still had as many as four or five years before she’d have her own house to keep, a responsibility much greater than assisting her mother. Therese smiled stiffly and stated that she had no need for anything he was offering and shut the door.

Therese reflected on this incident often, and hoped that by foregoing makeup around Richard, he too would see her as girlishly young and therefore—she had presumed—undesirable. Instead, Therese quickly perceived, Richard’s prurient interest in her seemed to intensify the more youthful she appeared. This she could not understand. She had often looked at herself in the mirror, compared her own plain, unformed reflection to the face of the woman she had seen in the window off Lexington: mature, defined, knowing—surely these were features that a man must find attractive in a woman.

In an effort to thwart Richard’s advances, then, Therese turned to her clothing. If she typically wore fashionable skirts that fell just below the knee, she wore matronly garments nearly touching her ankles on dates with Richard. If she generally preferred white cotton blouses buttoned comfortably below the neck, she made sure to expose to Richard not a patch of skin below the collar. And then there was what she wore underneath her clothing—a protective measure, heaven forbid it become necessary once more. While panties had in recent years become the feminine undergarment of choice, Therese had worn traditional knickers in the hope that Richard would find the old-fashioned style off-putting—that is, if he managed to persuade her once again to go to bed with him, a thought that made Therese’s body tighten and her stomach feel faintly ill.

Now, of course, everything was different. With Carol, Therese wanted only to look her best, because Carol deserved her best. Since landing a job designing set for a promising off-Broadway production, Therese had attended party after party where stout middle-aged men, perhaps once handsome, trotted exceptionally beautiful women around the room like trophy horses. Though these men rarely made up for in charisma what they lacked in appearance, none seemed the least bit daunted by the stark visual contrast between himself and his date. In fact, they seemed outright cocky about it, as if entitled by virtue of their wealth or merely their manhood to have such attractive women on their arms. Therese would never regard Carol that way. Though certain she would never match Carol’s beauty—no woman could, Therese was sure—she would try her damnedest. Thus Therese continued to arrange her ensembles with the same exacting precision as when she had dated Richard, now motivated only by love and appreciation for Carol.

When they first met, Therese had immediately discerned her own vague, unarticulated desire to touch Carol, to kiss Carol, but mostly she had just wanted to be loved by Carol, whatever that looked like. After all, Therese had really no logistical conception of sex between women. So it was only fitting that in Waterloo, and during the several times after that, Carol had taken the lead, a role that Therese had been perfectly content with. Now, though, when Carol made love to her, Therese felt a powerful desire to reciprocate. She felt such a desire on this cool spring night, in their Madison Avenue apartment after an evening at the Metropolitan opera.

“Here,” Carol said. “Give me your hand.”

Therese had stunned Carol by pulling her up quickly from her thighs and turning her onto her back, their positions reversed for the first time. Acting so suddenly and instinctually, Therese’s boldness had surprised even herself. Now, she found herself hovering tentatively over Carol, utterly certain of what she wanted to do and utterly uncertain of how to do it.

Carol understood her hesitation. She knew, this time, Therese’s thoughts, without having to ask. She had once thought them. What do I do, what do I do, where do I begin? Therese eagerly relinquished her hand to Carol’s. She shifted onto her side and propped her head up with her other hand, looking down at Carol with nervous readiness.

“Like this.” Carol dragged Therese’s fingers gently down her torso. When they reached Carol’s pubic hair, Therese’s eyes clasped shut. Between the sight of Carol, and the sensation of touching her so intimately, her senses were literally overwhelmed. What’s more, she understood the need to pay close attention. The books she’d read, the artists’ techniques she’d studied now seemed unimportant, a waste of time; how to bring Carol pleasure would be the most important technique she’d ever learn. She concentrated hard, as Carol guided her fingers in rhythmic movements, her breath quickening.

“Keep going,” Carol urged. Therese kept going. Then Carol abruptly removed her hand from Therese’s, and used it to draw Therese’s face to her own. Therese continued, her forehead pressed against Carol’s, Carol’s hand on her cheek as she writhed beneath her. A few more moments, and Carol sprung forward. Therese knew then—she’d done it. Carol collapsed.

Carol opened her eyes to Therese looking down at her, astonished, and laughed. Therese jolted. Carol put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Darling, you’re rather good at that.” She kissed her warmly on the mouth.

Therese smiled meekly. “I know now is when you usually—” Carol waited. “I’d like to do more.” Therese looked down, feeling silly all of a sudden. She didn’t even know the word for it.

"Oh darling—by all means.” Carol grinned, but Therese didn’t move. “Would you like me to show you again how it’s done?” Carol smiled at her teasingly, moving to position herself once again over Therese. 

“No, no—I mean—I think you’ve shown me enough times.” She blushed, still not meeting Carol’s eyes.

“Then what is it, Therese?” Carol asked, in a slightly more serious tone. She made herself level with her partner.

“Oh, I don’t know. I just feel—foolish.”

“Foolish,” Carol repeated searchingly. “Why?”  
  
“Because—because I’m not like you, Carol.” She struggled to find the words. She hated not having the words. “You’re beautiful and elegant and I—I’m not like that, I—” Carol waited for her to finish. She couldn’t, and her cheeks grew hot with shame. The absurd nature of their relationship struck her. Who was she to be with Carol?

“Darling, I would have hoped that by now, you’d know how exquisite you are to me.” Therese felt her heart constrict. “I think I know what might help.”

Therese looked up. “What?”

“Oh—nothing,” Carol said, a sly twinkle in her eye, the same one that had made Therese believe in love at first sight that day at Frankenberg’s. “Don’t worry about it. For now. For now, why don’t we go back to what we were doing? Or did you say you’d had enough, Miss Belivet?”

“I don’t recall saying that.”

“You don’t?” Carol asked, faux incredulously.

“I don’t, Mrs. Aird.”

 

 


End file.
